page_title: Siberia
section_title: Geography
hierarchical_section_title: Siberia / Geography
caption_attribution_description: English: Vasyugan River, Tomsk oblast, Siberia. Русский: Река Васюган в Томской области, вид с вертолёта. Deutsch: Der Fluss Wassjugan im Gebiet Tomsk, Sibirien, Blick aus dem Hubschrauber.
context_page_description: Siberia is an extensive geographical region spanning much of Eurasia and Northern Asia. Siberia has been part of modern Russia since the latter half of the 16th century.
  The territory of Siberia extends eastwards from the Ural Mountains to the watershed
  between the Pacific and Arctic drainage basins. The river Yenisey conditionally divides Siberia into two parts, Western and Eastern. Siberia stretches southwards from the Arctic Ocean to the hills of north-central Kazakhstan and to the national borders of Mongolia and China.
  With an area of 13.1 million square kilometres, Siberia accounts for 77% of Russia's land area, but it is home to only 23% of the country's population. This is equivalent to an average population density of about 3 inhabitants per square kilometre, making Siberia one of the most sparsely populated regions on Earth. If it were a country by itself, it would still be the largest country by area, but in population it would be the world's 35th-largest and Asia's 14th-largest.
context_section_description: With an area of 13.1 million square kilometres (5,100,000 sq mi), Siberia makes up roughly 77% of Russia's total territory and almost 9% of Earth's land surface (148,940,000 km², 57,510,000 sq mi). While Siberia falls entirely within Asia, many authorities such as the UN geoscheme will not subdivide countries and will place all of Russia as part of Europe and/or Eastern Europe. Major geographical zones include the West Siberian Plain and the Central Siberian Plateau.
  Eastern and central Sakha comprises numerous north–south mountain ranges of various ages. These mountains extend up to almost 3,000 metres (9,800 ft), but above a few hundred metres they are almost completely devoid of vegetation. The Verkhoyansk Range was extensively glaciated in the Pleistocene, but the climate was too dry for glaciation to extend to low elevations. At these low elevations are numerous valleys, many of them deep and covered with larch forest, except in the extreme north where the tundra dominates. Soils are mainly turbels (a type of gelisol). The active layer tends to be less than one metre deep, except near rivers.
  The highest point in Siberia is the active volcano Klyuchevskaya Sopka, on the Kamchatka Peninsula. Its peak is at 4,750 metres (15,580 ft).
caption: The river Vasyugan in the southern West Siberian Plain
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